2015-12-16 Last Book Club Ever

When we gathered for our last book club meeting, the librarian told us that this was the last book club he would ever lead and the last one on this ship. Holland America is going to cut out the position of librarian. They may cut out the library all together. Most people carry their own books on Kindles and IPads. So, the library space will soon no longer be needed. The library currently has several computers but most people have their own computer in the form of a phone these days.

The librarian said the new ships may not have formal dining rooms, either. We have only been to the dining room once on this trip. We much prefer the casual dining. There is an option to pay extra ($25 each) to eat in a specialty restaurant. We had a free dinner in the Pinnacle specialty restaurant provided by our travel agent. I have to say it was fantastic. But, we just aren’t into gourmet dining. The Lido is good enough.  We overeat as it is.

I ran into a friend from book club and we discussed yesterday’s meeting. Her husband has COPD and uses oxygen at all times. He caught the coughing illness that swept the ship a few weeks ago. Bill and I had it on our last cruise and we must have developed some immunity as we didn’t catch it this time. We brought a bag of cough drops that we are now handing out to the coughers. Her husband has progressed beyond coughing to pneumonia. He is on antibiotics.

The Indonesian crew members put on a show yesterday. We have seen several of these but this was the best one because we knew half the people in the cast this time. It’s always fun to watch people that you know in a performance.  

This is Maria and Edy standing by a Christmas decoration.

This is Rumi on the left and Herlina in the middle. They sang at the Indonesian Crew show.

There is a traditional part of the Indonesian show called The Monkey Dance. This was the best one we have seen.

We had a few more friends among the crew.

2015-12-15 Trouble in Paradise

We have been in paradise for the last two months but some rain falls on everyone. For the last three days, we have had some turbulence and I was affected by it. I didn’t feel good enough to attend any activities yesterday so I have nothing to report. Among other things, we missed the Philippine crew show. We know some of the people who performed so we were really sad to miss it. We also missed the lectures and the evening’s entertainment.

Today, the weather is much better but we had a different problem. My scooter quit. Bill towed me back to the room and tore it all apart. We haven’t had any trouble with that scooter but it looks like an intermittent electrical problem. He can fix it here if he has to but I will try to baby it along until we get home. It’s a good thing I travel with my own mechanic!

2015-12-13 Shows and Lectures

The last two evening shows have been really good. The Maasdam singers and dancers outdid themselves Friday night. We have a large group of singers and dancers this time and they are excellent. I don’t see how they can do two shows a night but somehow they do it. Thankfully, the sea was pretty calm. This kind of show is cancelled when it’s too dangerous to dance on chairs, for example, like a young man did during the show.

We picked up a performing group called Island Magic Steel Band at our last port. They are from Trinidad and present both popular and classical music with a Caribbean flavor. They were on last night and they were also fantastic! It’s hard to explain what they do with steel drums but they tried to explain it to us. The steel drums look empty inside but somehow they hit them in the correct spot to produce each note.

The “cello” sound was produced by Opal who is in the room two doors down from us. They played a few popular songs from Cats and Phantom of the Opera. Then they did Ave Maria very softly. It was so sweet that the man who was playing the “violin” part started crying. It was very moving to him, too, I guess.

They played several upbeat classical songs to end the show. One of them was the theme known as “Can Can.” It was fantastic! Bill turned to me and said he hoped they would play “The William Tell Overture.” And they did!  I have never seen the kind of reception they received from the audience on a cruise ship. People leaped to their feet whistling, yelling and clapping! We managed to get them to play one more song. The whole performance was just amazing.

It was even more amazing because the "violin" player died suddenly and Opal replaced her with only a few weeks to get ready for this cruise.

Afterwards, there was a celebration of Frank Sinatra’s 100^th birthday in the Ocean Bar. There were some guest singers. One of them was the cantor on the ship. He has a deep voice. He sang “My Way” and “New York, New York.” Today is the last day of Chanukah and he is leading the Jewish services in the showroom at five. I am going to go and see what they do.

Then the cruise director, Mark Brignone, (who is from Murray, Utah) sang two songs in a beautiful tenor. One of the songs was “Summer Wind.” He’s a great singer and a wonderful guy to boot.

We also have a pastor on board and a Catholic priest, Father Joe. We have chatted with him several times. We have a lot in common because he lives in Boise, Idaho so we can discuss issues local to the Intermountain West.

I watched the Paris Climate agreements on the BBC yesterday while Bill took a nap.  I would say it was cool but that would be a pun.

We are still attending lectures on Space by Frank Buzzard.  He said that space exploration is the reason we have such amazing satellites and why we can see TV and use the internet in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. Here is Frank's picture on LinkedIn:

The terrorism lectures have also been good. There are 250 definitions of terrorism. We reviewed some of them.

“Terrorism is a form of theater aimed at the people watching.” OR “Terror is a natural phenomenon. Terrorism is the exploitation of this phenomenon.” OR “The threat or use of violence to persuade, coerce or gain public attention.”

It’s a threat of what might happen. They seek to multiply the fear reaction by choosing the people they want to influence. It makes people change their behavior. In most cases, they want to affect governments and intimidate the civilian population. They are the playwrights and the primary actors. The media, governments and the rest of us write the reviews.

We talked about flying and how much it has been changed by terrorism. He says he doesn’t worry about flying because terrorists choose the softest targets.

We had much more opportunity to comment today. I made a comment about the Tylenol murders. It changed life for everyone when containers of medications and foodstuffs became much harder to open. As a child, those containers were easy to open and I was rushed to the doctor once for eating a whole container of baby aspirin and once for eating a whole container of Ex-Lax. I don’t remember any of that but my family told me about it. I also fell out of the car four times before the door handles were improved to make it harder to open the door accidentally.

Bill and I once had an experience that might qualify as terrorism. At the time we just thought of it as violence. But it is one of the reasons we moved to Utah from California. We worked to get a public park in our area of San Bruno. One of the people who helped us was a stringer for the local paper and wrote news stories about our efforts.

WARNING: The following is graphic--true but shocking!

She was jogging along the railroad a few blocks from our house one morning when she was beheaded by a group of black men using a machete. There was some speculation about whether or not they were the group known as the Zebra Killers. They were black men who terrorized the San Francisco Bay Area by attacking white people. This was around 1979. After that horrible incident, we became more serious about moving.

2015-12-12 Heading Home

The helm is pointed towards Ft Lauderdale and we are heading home. I would like to say more about Cabin 709 since we are well acquainted with it now. We still love it but it has a few flaws. It is near the diesel intake and we can smell it when the ship is getting refilled with diesel. We have to open the door and air it out. Also, we are directly over the engine room. We don’t hear the engines but we get cool when the engine room turns up the air conditioner.

We are having a warm, clear day but there is quite a bit of wave action. The captain said at lunchtime that we are moving at 18 knots per hour. The engines must be running hot because our room is cold. We have the door open to the hallway so we can get some warm air in our room.

The captain said the turbulence should peak by noon tomorrow with waves of about 10 feet high which will be pretty rocky. The good news is that it will be about 75 degrees. So iit will be warm with a chance of falling. We heard the Second Officer speak yesterday about how they steer the ship. It was virtual tour. One man gave the wheel (joystick) a spin during an actual tour so they no longer allow passengers to enter the helm area.  

We have a big cabin which is very good most of the time. However, it means that we have to make sure we are holding on to things when we move around. Most cabins are pretty small and the bed takes up a most of the room. People have said that they fell on their beds and they can hardly get hurt that way. Bill tried moving from the bathroom to the sofa this morning and fell against the edge of my scooter handle. He has two nasty bruises but says he is okay.

We have become friends with the staff of the Lido where we usually eat. Today, Maria gave me some earrings to give to my granddaughter. They are beautiful. She said she doesn’t wear them because they hang down too much. I brought my computer and showed her a picture of Ivy.

Here is a picture of Ivy wearing the earrings.

2015-12-10 Funchal Revisited

We took a tour of the island yesterday. I did too much walking and decided to spend some time in the hot tub when we got back. I talked to a couple who said that two people on their bus fell today but they both seemed to be okay. One woman fell off the back steps of the bus when the driver started moving the bus, not realizing that she was on the steps. Another woman fell at the overlook where we stopped to take pictures. Neither of them was badly hurt.

This was our second trip to Funchal. It’s a volcanic island not too far from the Canary Islands but it belongs to Portugal. The group of islands produces a famous wine called Madeira which means “green woods”.  Funchal shipped wood to Portugal and it was used to make the famous caravel style ships that the Portuguese used to explore the world. English is the second language and 60% of jobs are connected to tourism. Our guide said she is earning a degree in tourism.

Funchal was discovered accidentally in 1419 by a man named Zarcho who was searching the coast of Africa on assignment from a well known prince whose name currently escapes me. Zarcho was surprised to find it uninhabited. There were no large mammals but rabbits were later introduced. They have become a problem so they are legally hunted in the fall. There no snakes but plenty of lizards. There were a large number of monk seals on the beaches. Zarcho called them sea wolves.

He named the island Funchal after the aromatic herb, fennel. On our last visit, I brought home some hard candy flavored with fennel and some flavored with eucalyptus. Neither one was popular with my friends or family. Eucalyptus is an import from Australia that grows well in Funchal. It has a strong odor that repels insects. For that reason, birds are not attracted to it. In Australia, eucalyptus forests are called the silent woods because of no bird song.

Funchal has black rock beaches so the residents here like to vacation on a nearby island called Puerto Santo that has six miles of golden sand beaches. Columbus had a house in Puerto Santo that is preserved as a tourist attraction. He married the daughter of the governor and traded sugar cane that grows there. The islands are closer to Africa than to Europe but there is no direct transportation to Africa. They can fly to Lisbon in 90 minutes.

Flowers grow wild here and bloom in all seasons. We saw bougainvillea blooming in several colors. Poinsettia grows so well here that it is more like a tree than a plant. The residents have to order their Christmas plants from Holland just like everyone else. I saw bottle brush and an aloe that they call red rockets. They grow and export bananas. The whole island is great for plants because of the volcanic soil. However, the gardens have to be terraced as there is little flat land available. We traveled to several high points to take pictures. One of the places had a see though acrylic deck hanging over the cliffs. It was pretty cool.

This is a view from the cafe where we stopped to sample the local wares.

This is also a view from the cafe but to the left of the top pic.

Here is the view from the acrylic overlook.

You can see through the acrylic. Some people were really freaked out by that and wouldn't step on it.

These orange flowers are actually redder than they look here and are called red rockets.

The whole island is terraced for planting. 

This picture was taken from our last stop way up in the hills. There is a small village. Lots of flowers, bees and butterflies even in December.

2015-12-9 Florist, Terrorism and the Space Shuttle

I just took a tour of the flowers on the ship with the florist, Heri. He is not a ship employee but is an Indonesian who is employed by a company in Holland. He makes 340 flower arrangements a month. 

The green flowers in the arrangement below are called Moby Dick's because they look like whales if you view them sideways. 

There are some Moby Dick's in this arrangement, too. 

I think the yellow roses were my favorite. 

We are having quite a bit of turbulence today and Bill is seasick. He went with me to the Book Club meeting in the Crow’s Nest but left because the motion is worse the higher up you go in the ship. It also increases when you go to either end of the ship. Low down in the middle of the ship is the least movement. Maria, one of our servers, said she was a little seasick today, too.

Frank Buzzard gave another great talk on the space shuttle. This time he emphasized the fourteen (?) nations who got together to build the space station.

Yesterday, I took notes while the Moroccan guide told us about Casablanca. He turned to me and said, “Good student”, then went on with his talk. I am a good student. I took a lot of notes at Stephen Sloan’s talk on terrorism.

Mr. Sloan says nice things about his wife from the podium. It’s obvious that he has a great deal of respect and affection for her. Today, he took some questions after his lecture. Someone asked him  if gender equality is at fault for the terrorism crisis. He considers gender equality to be “just equality”. He said his wife ran up against the glass ceiling several times in her career so he understands women’s issues.

The title of his talk today was Conflict, Violence, Terrorism and Warfare in Political Life.  There was a common phrase when I was growing up that described the children of immigrants melting into the common mélange of people. But, Mr. Sloan says the Melting Pot hasn’t melted. Many people keep their ethnic, national and/or religious identities when they move to a new area.

The first theme in the current conflict is Anti-Western because the colonial legacy still matters. We saw that in Morocco. The French influence is still very heavy because everyone speaks and reads French. Moroccans are not even trying to blend the various cultures. They celebrate their proximate but separate identities.

The second theme is Anti-Secular as many cultures are religious and reject modernization.

The third theme is Anti-Democratic.  The “gray world” is not composed of democracies but is still governed by autocratic systems. Geographic boundaries are more porous than ever. Multinational corporations and criminal enterprises are also factors in change.

Terrorism used to be one tactic in an insurgency. Now terrorism seems to be the only tactic. There are new mercenaries who are hired by governments or corporations. Far more money is being expended in private security rather than in armies.

There is theory that events result in some kind of equilibrium but Mr. Sloan believes that violence and conflict are inevitable. Some ideologies believe in permanent conflict. He says all forms of political violence are not bad. Conflict, violence and warfare are always present in political life.

The state (government) has a monopoly of more or less legitimate force. “Force is legitimate violent.” He recommended a report called “The Causal Model of Civil Life” by Ted Gurr.

People feel relative deprivation—a lack of some kind even though they have a better life than their parents. He studied The Weathermen, a 1960’s terrorist group. They were the children of people who were relatively well-off. “Terrorism is the violence of the privileged.” Societies that are undergoing a change have more potential for violence.

He explained the J Curve Theory of Revolution. I didn’t catch exactly what it was but I will ask him to repeat the definition next time. He also said that the Middle East is one of the ungovernable areas of the world. Many states are states in name only. He mentioned the Intolerable Gap and will talk more about it next time. 

2015-12-8 Casablanca, Morocco

We watched Donald Trump vilify Muslims on the news this morning at the exact time that we were getting ready to visit Casablanca, a Muslim city. It was surreal. It was our first time to Africa. The ship stopped at Tangier on Nov 14 but we didn’t go on a tour because they required too much walking. This time we decided to go anyway. I hear that Tangier was a more picturesque city. Casablanca is a busy industrial port.

Bill stayed on the bus but I got off and did the best I could to keep with the guide. He made a big point of how well the different religions and sectors get along with each other. Our first stop was at a Catholic church. He also pointed out the Jewish area and the American area, among others that I don’t remember. The areas also have their own primary and high schools. Universities are more heterogeneous. Also, the colleges were once separated into men’s and women’s but are now mixed.

He showed us the daily newspaper Le Matin which is published in French. The date is shown in five different ways. One way is the Gregorian calendar (our way). Another is the Jewish calendar. The Muslim calendar is figured from the time that Mohammed started the Muslim religion. I don’t remember the other two ways.

When we stopped at this government building, the guide told us this is his summer place.

It had a beautifully detailed door. Someone said the outside of a mosque must have some green on it. 

There are more women than men in Morocco and many things have changed in regard to women. The guide asked this rhetorical question: “What do Moroccan women wear?” His answer, “They wear whatever they want.”  We saw women in every stage of western and traditional Muslim clothes, except that all of them were covered up. There was no cleavage or shorts. It’s winter, though, so who knows what they wear in the summer.

We saw a woman dressed completely in white. The guide said that she is a widow. White is a sign of mourning and wearing total white means that the husband has died. She is supposed to wear this outfit for four months and ten days. That seems odd but it gives enough time for a pregnancy to become apparent. If she is not pregnant, she can remarry. If she is pregnant, she needs to continue wearing widow’s weeds until she delivers.

I asked the guide about polygamy and he explained it as a way to solve some common problems in a marriage without being divorced from the first wife. One of the reasons was that if a man was required to travel, he needs a wife in each location. He said less than one percent of Moroccan men are married to more than one woman. That is partly because of economics but also because women don’t like it. He joked a lot about polygamy. He said the four woman limit is related to the four seasons of the year. That got a laugh. Then he said it is because of the four colors of the human race. That didn’t go over as well. He said he only has one wife because two mothers in law is one too many.

We drove out by the coast to see some touristy places and stop for a snack and a drink of soda pop.

Then we saw a Muslim mosque called the Hassan II mosque. It is huge. He said that thousands of people are there every night after the Ramadan fast is completed. We talked about Ramadan and he explained that it occurs two weeks earlier every year. We reviewed the Five Pillars of Islam: Allah is the only God, prayer five times a day, fast on Ramadan, give alms to the poor, and visit Mecca once in your life if you can. He said a visit to Mecca from Morocco now costs 6,000 to 7,000 Euros and is out of reach for most people.

Here is a close up of some of the detail on the mosque.

There were lots of soldiers and local police guarding every place we went. They stood outside the cruise ship with machine guns when we drove out. We were cautioned not to take any pictures of them. When we visited a place that was guarded, he told the guards how many people of each nationality were in our group. The largest portion was Americans, then Canadians and I didn’t hear what the others were.

2015-12-7 If this is Monday, it must be Cadiz

Actually, it’s Pearl Harbor Day in the U.S. but I suspect most people don’t remember it.  It’s an important day in our family history because my parents got engaged the next day, Dec 8. They were living in Washington, DC and my dad was in the Army Reserves. They were sure he would be called to active duty and they were right.

Today we went rolled into Cadiz with our friends, Don and Sandie from Tennessee. We had a goal to visit the big cathedral that we could see from the Lido deck on the ship. We heard there was a big outdoor market. It’s true but it turned out to be closed on Monday. However, we saw some cool places and I ended up shopping for a few things.

It was cool again today and I needed a neck scarf. I could have brought one but I really did not believe it would be cold enough. I think I am cold because I am on the scooter. Walking keeps the blood pumping. So I bought one that goes with the pink jacket I bought on board the ship. Three of us bought the same pink jacket and say that we belong to the Pink Ladies Club. There is a lot of Moorish influence in Cadiz so I choose a wall of tile and posed in front of it wearing my new scarf.

I also bought some earrings for my granddaughter and a necklace for myself. Bill says this picture looks like an angry ISIS caricature.

Here is a beautiful square just a short distance from the ship in Cadiz. 

This is monument that I could see from the ship.

There are some pretty cool bridges everywhere in the world except the U.S.

A nice fountain near the dock. 

They really have some strange art here. I think this is part of an intestine. 

This is one of the interesting cornerstones.